


Company We Keep

by IspeakfortheQueen



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, First Meetings, Slow Burn, also based on Marcy's Secret Scrapbook which is a gem of a television franchise tie in book, or at least doing my best, two scrappy kids from the post-apocalypse coping as best they know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-27 17:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14430624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IspeakfortheQueen/pseuds/IspeakfortheQueen
Summary: Marceline wakes up from her hibernation.





	1. Chapter 1

It must have been a few hundred years between falling asleep and waking up but there’s no real way of knowing. The Earth has moved and changed in so many ways since you last saw it. _(It was an earthquake that woke you up. Schwabl's high pitched barking and rocks tumbling down onto your face and lava threatening to shoot forth from the dirt and steam your hams.)_ Out in the world, skyscrapers you remember sinking into the ground are picked clean of their metal parts. Some of the cities are still desolate but the trees and plants that once grew in the abandoned parks are thriving and making their own forests. Out past the cities there are small towns and communities that are thriving. There are farms with barns and cows and vegetable fields. You’ve only ever seen farms like these in pictures in books. _(Colored-pencil drawing of a farmer boy feeding a rust colored cow on the cover of a mildewed book in an abandoned bookstore.)_ It’s so wild to see them up in real life.

You spy a red barn and settle on the roof to watch the weird little green people that live in this particular village work the fields. People are different now. There’s all sorts of new creatures in all shapes sizes and colors. Sometimes the people are talking animals. You flew past a village of talking dogs once. Sometimes you wish Schwabl could talk but you’re pretty good at communicating with each other without words so what does that matter?

You spend an afternoon on the roof of the barn in the shade of a big oak tree, picking off roof tiles that no one will notice and sucking out the bits of color until it’s dusk. 

You can float across the whole world like this. So much has changed, it’s easy to distract yourself from thinking about all the things that happened before your hibernation.

You travel to a place where some of the rivers are still that awful green. _(You were so surprised and relieved when you saw how clear they were where you had woken up.)_ You drink rain water and snow drippings on mountain tops like you had to when you were little. It’s pleasant to sit on the rocky sides of cliffs and look at the changed landscape. The cold air feels good, which sounds silly because your skin is always cold.

In the pink of a mountain sunset _(on top of the wold on a rusted ferris wheel with Dad before the clouds came in)_ the past starts creeping in at last. It trickles over your brain like someone’s cracked an egg on your head _(when Simon tried to kill a bird with one stone but missed and the nest fell on your head and Simon helped you wash out the yolks and little blue shell crumbs with some precious bottled water you found in an abandoned store)_ and then it slides down your throat like a bad beverage _(once, after Simon left, you found a bottle of grape juice and it turned out to be wine that had turned to vinegar and then puking bitter out onto the snow)_ and wraps around your chest constricting it until you almost can’t breath _(you cried once and the sound only attracted a mob of Oozers you had to run from)_. You don’t cry. You think about how absurd it would be to cry. This is just how the world is. The world is sad and confusing and that’s just how it is supposed to be. But it's not just sad and confusing, not it’s all too complicated to just be one long sad emotion. It’s a lot of little emotions puzzled together so you take out your axe and start playing some chords to help you put all the emotions together into one long lonely song.


	2. Chapter 2

You’re flying against the sun of an approaching summer morning. You chase the retreating darkness west, all the while searching for a safe place to hide from the rays of light.

In the distance you see a mountain range that you haven’t seen before. It's snowcapped, covered in thick layers of ice from top to bottom, and completely unseasonal. There’s a cave at the top most peak that looks like a crying mouth on a sad mournful face. The snow around it looks like shaggy white hair _(a toboggan pulled by dogs sliding down a city street, the back of that head of shaggy white hair growing smaller and smaller in the distance, the knees of your pants are soaked in slush but you can’t feel it because the tears are too hot on your cheeks)_. You gasp and dive into an orchard below just as the sun starts to catch up with you.

Safe for the time being, you consider the mountains. They aren’t that far away. You could visit him. Then the truth of the matter hits you like a brick, and you don't want to think too hard about it, is that he could have died years ago. Well, face it, he was just a human, he _should_ have died years ago. There's things growing up where nothing used to grow. _It has been years_. He _did_ die years ago. He's dead. Don't think about that too hard because it hurts when you do. It's probably something else causing all that snow. You're learning the rules of this new world and it could just as well be due to some totally random other ice monster, or witch, or curse. Schwabl licks your cheeks and you realize you're tearing up. Ugh! Not now!

"Sorry boy, I was getting a little sentimental." You set Schwabl on the ground. He sniffs the grass growing around the trees and that breaks into a run over the roots.

You’re faster than Schwabl of course but you let him run ahead of you. He’s been cooped up in your arms all night and he needs the exercise.

The trees have white bark that looks and feels like cardboard. The leaves are...pink? At the end of the orchard is a big sunny meadow with vibrant green grass. Schwabl leaps into the middle of it and runs in erratic circles. Is there is nothing happier than a dog who gets to run in a big open field? 

You’d be happier too if you could run around that field without frying up like a lizard in a cook pan. You need to find a sunhat. Or an umbrella. For now the axe will do. It’s a multi-purpose tool really.

You fly in the instrument’s shade to the end of the meadow where Schwabl wags his tail at the edge of a green river.

“Woah, Schwabl don’t drink that, buddy!” you scoop him up with your free hand. It’s an awkward position to hold but you don’t want your only friend poisoning himself. You eye the flow of the river. _(Standing in an abandoned factory full of firewood with Simon, his arms spread wide, “See if you follow the river downstream, you’ll always find something interesting!”)_

A little ways away is another orchard. The two of you rest in the shade there. The fruit on the trees are glittering. You pick one off and sniff it. Sugar plums? You eat it. It’s so soft and sweet and gross. Definitely sugar plums.

“I guess candy grows off of trees now, Schwabl,” you laugh. Simon liked candy but he always complained that it was stale whenever you came across it, though you were pretty certain candy was always supposed to be like that. People in old books seemed to like it too but you always thought it was too sweet. 

There’s all sorts of candy growing off the trees and they are definitely not stale. Some of them, like the licorice, are actually palatable. The edge of the orchard is full of trees made of taffy. You don’t remember taffy ever being so sticky, but it’s pink and you can suck the color out of that.

The green river’s wrapped around the candy orchard and it flows out in front of you again. What’s beyond the river is what astounds you.

It's an enormous fortress with moving cranes and scaffolds all over it. You’ve never seen cranes in action _(“People used to use them to make those big buildings. See? That one has some rebar on it!” Simon pointing to a sky scraper left forever in mid-construction)_. Someone’s building something big. 

Schwabl trots across a draw bridge connected to the structure and while you don’t need to use it, you float over it’s path. 

Two creatures stand at the gateway to the enormous fortress. They look like green bananas and they have the voices of children.

“Princess! Princess! Invaders! Invaders!” They’re holding hockey sticks like spears and waving them so wildly and ineffectively that they end up hitting each other instead of you.

“Invaders?” you laugh and twist around in the air just to see if it will freak them out. Schwabl sniffs at their legs, which seem to be made of wood, and then starts licking one of them. The green banana’s screams turns to a high laughter. “Hey stop that, that tickles!”

“Who dares tickles my Bananas!” shouts a terse voice.

You look up. On the wall of the fortress stands a fierce looking woman. Her skin is pink and her hair is darker pink and is made from a substance that looks to be that’s oozing out of its braids in the sunlight. She’s wearing clothes that make her look like a gladiator, or at least she’s standing like a gladiator ready for battle. She’s also got on some sick combat boots. If you were anyone else you would have peed your pants on the spot for sure. Instead you’re filled with absolute admiration. 

“It’s just my dog!” you shout up from below.

“What?” she shouts back down. 

“I said it’s just my dog!” you shout louder. 

“What did you- Wait, hold on!” she leaps down the scaffolding on the front wall and down to your level.  
“Drop your weapon now!” she commands. 

“But it’s just a little dog,” you say, pointing to Schwabl who is licking the faces of the bananas who are now laughing and rolling on the ground. 

“I said drop your weapon!” she shouts.

“Weap- oh.” Your axe is still in the air. You glide into the shade of the archway before putting it down. “It’s just my axe.” You show her the side that’s a bass guitar before putting it gently on the ground. “Listen I don’t want any trouble, I can just leave.”

“State your business here!” She's a young woman. 19? 20? She's angry.

“What’s your business here?” Whoops.

“I am Princess Bubblegum, ruler and protector of the Candy Kingdom. My business _is_ to be here.”

“A princess huh? Well, I’m a queen.” You’re teasing her. You shouldn’t, but you want to, so now you are. Glob, Marcy, who taught you how to pick a fight? 

“What is your dominion?”

“Oh, I’m not just the queen of any old land, I am the Vampire Queen.”

“Vampires are fake.” Whatever power trip you were just on just came to a crashing halt. _(Fangs, pain, red.)_

“Vampire’s aren’t fake!”

“Well yeah maybe they were real a long time ago but they all died so now whatever vampires exist are in stories you tell to scare little kids into being good, so yeah, they’re fake.” She shrugs. She sounds very unimpressed. You’re seething.

“I’m the one who killed all the vampires!” Your face is hot, something’s pounding in your ears. You've only just registered how loud you shrieked.

“Not all one person could have done it. They probably just died of natural causes over time.”

“Tell that to me one more time.” Your voice isn’t your own. Now she’s done it. You see her and the bananas and Schwabl grow smaller below you. You’re bigger and your arms are bigger and hairier and stronger and you reach out one long clawed hand to grab at her but suddenly there is a sharp stinging pain on her fingertips and you can’t believe you forgot the sun in your rage. You hiss and pull back to the shadows of the archway and let the world return to its normal size. You’re you again and you’re standing in front of this Princess Bubblegum who at last looks genuinely shaken.

“See I told you,” part seething, part gloating, your worlds muffled because you’re sucking on the burns on your right hand.

“You- you’re-“

“Vampire!” the two green bananas yell and flee deeper into the fortress. The Bubblegum girl holds her ground. Oh! Bubblegum! That’s what she’s made out of and that’s why her hair is oozing.

“The one and only, your highness” you bow deeply, just to make it silly.

“What is your business here?” she asks, still stern, but, there’s a mite of cautiousness now. 

“You got any place shady I can hang out till sunset? I was just thinking about traveling to those ice mountains over there, but I can’t do that till it’s dark. If you don’t want me around, I get it, I’m used to that. Maybe if I could just borrow an umbrella or someth-”

At the mention of the ice mountains she had jumped. Now she is shushing you, one pink finger against your lips and your face is hot again but for reasons you don’t know why. 

She glances from side to side and then nods, mostly to herself. “Let’s convene inside.”


End file.
